The sewer roach, along with other common insects and pests, pose numerous well known problems to the health and well being of humans who live with and around them. On-going attempts to exterminate them have continued for years, but they are exceedingly difficult to exterminate. Most extermination attempts achieve only temporary success at best. The extermination problem is worsened by the requirement that chemicals used in extermination attempts be relatively safe for the humans, animals, and plants around which these pests live.
These pests often breed and reside in sewers or other building and municipal draining systems. The sewers are ideally suited for the viability of pests because they provide a continuous supply of organic material upon which the pests feed, and they provide shelter. In addition, since sewers are typically constructed with few access ports between long expanses of pipe, pesticides are introduced into remote sections of a sewer or draining system only with great difficulty.
One technique for applying pesticide to sewers is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,322,623, issued to Peter P. Doakley, and entitled "Method of Inhibiting Roach Infestation in Waste Disposal Systems with Electrostatic Bentonite-Pesticide Composition." The disclosure of this '623 patent is incorporated herein, in its entirety, by reference. This patent discloses an apparatus and method for electrostatically charging a specifically formulated pesticide dust and for applying this charged dust into manholes in a municipal sewer system. The application of electrostatically charged pesticide dust, regardless of the composition, to a sewer has proven to be an effective technique in the extermination of pests. The electrostatically charged dust tends to provide generally good coverage of the interior of a sewer and tends to exhibit generally good retention.
However, the system and method described in the '623 patent is undesirably inefficient in the delivery of pesticide. Specifically, a tremendously large quantity of pesticide dust is consumed in order to achieve adequate coverage and good retention. Only a small portion of the pesticide dust actually adheres to sewer walls, and the bulk of the pesticide dust forms drift or is otherwise wasted. Moreover, the apparatus utilized in the '623 patent is undesirably heavy and bulky. The large quantity of pesticide dust required by this apparatus and the large size of this apparatus has limited its use to being a truck-mounted system which is only practical for use by municipalities with municipal sewer systems. Specifically, its large size has made it unsuited for use in connection with private residences or businesses.